


Falling Together

by OceanAndSpace



Series: Ocean writes short fics [9]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e03 The Reichenbach Fall, Gen, Spoilers, re-use of episode's dialogues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-16
Updated: 2012-07-16
Packaged: 2017-11-10 02:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/461024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OceanAndSpace/pseuds/OceanAndSpace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock falls and John is left behind by himself. Or... ?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Together

“I’m a fake.”  
  
“Sherlock…”  
  
“The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Lestrade, I want you to tell Mrs. Hudson and Molly. In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you. That I created Moriarty for my own purposes.”  
  
John couldn’t believe that he was hearing this. Sherlock was standing on the hospital’s rooftop, so close from the edge that a gust of wind would probably be enough to push him over.  
  
“Okay, shut up, Sherlock. Shut up.” He couldn’t listen to this. “The first time we met—the first time we met—” Something, he needed something. Some kind of proof, this was just another one of Sherlock’s crazy schemes, he needed to say something. “You knew all about my sister, right?”  
  
“Nobody could be that clever.”  
  
Bullshit. Even so, even—nobody could keep up the pretence for so long, especially as they lived together. “You could.” Sherlock sounded like he was crying. It couldn’t be.  
  
“I researched you. Before we met. I discovered everything that I could to impress you. It’s just a trick. A magic trick.”  
  
No! It couldn’t be! Eyes closed, John shook his head in denial. He didn’t want to listen anymore. They had had words recently, but it didn’t mean anything. Whatever Sherlock had prepared, John wouldn’t believe this obvious lie. He just—he couldn’t. He had to join him, to get Sherlock to come down “No. Come on, stop it now.”  
  
“No! Stay exactly where you are. Don’t move.”  
  
Sherlock sounded desperate. John knew how he sounded when he was acting and playing people. This wasn’t it. John stopped and walked back a few paces, holding a hand up. “All right.” Anything. Anything for him.  
  
Sherlock mirrored him, stretching his arm out in front of him, as if he were trying to reach for John across the street. “Keep your eyes fixed on me. Please, will you do this for me?”  
  
Desperate wasn’t enough, Sherlock sounded frantic now and John couldn’t shake the feeling that the situation was out of control. Sherlock never said please. John swallowed heavily. “Do what?”  
  
“This phone call, it’s… it’s my note. That’s what people do, don’t they? Leave a note.”  
  
Tears were slipping down his cheeks. John hadn’t realised that he was crying. This wasn’t—this couldn’t—it couldn’t be what it sounded like. The whole affair with Moriarty was a nightmare, it was true, but it wasn’t so bad that Sherlock had no other choice but to—to kill himself. It just wasn’t possible.  
  
“Leave a note when?” How, why, where. What was he trying to say?  
  
“Goodbye, John.”  
  
No, no, no. “No. Don’t…”  
  
Sherlock gazed down at him in silence a long moment before letting his arms fall back. John heard the phone crack against the roof as Sherlock let it go. Sherlock spread his arms wide and tilted forward in slow motion. They were still staring at each other as Sherlock started falling down, almost in slow motion. He seemed to hang there for a second and John screamed, so hard that he could feel his throat burn already. “Sherlock! No!”  
  
He was too far, he couldn’t reach him, he couldn’t help, once again he had failed Sherlock and Moriarty had won. Won, won, won, ‘I’ll burn the heart out of you’, ‘I owe you a fall’, ‘I owe you’, ‘I.O.U.’, ‘I.O.U.’, ‘I.O.U.’.  
  
John rushed across the street, running to Sherlock, but he already knew, he knew that there was nothing left. Nothing to do, nothing possible. Nothing he could do. Once again, John was useless, he could never save anyone.  
  
A bike knocked him down and he didn’t even pay attention. Running, lying on the asphalt, head throbbing and his heart in his throat. He could see the crowd forming, people running toward the body. Blood was spreading on the ground, flowing down the gutter.  
  
John stood again, stumbling and staggering on the road, heedless of the fact that cars were swerving around him and hooting at him.  
  
People were trying to keep him away from the body but he wouldn’t let them. He couldn’t remember exactly what he said. Probably something about him being a doctor. He managed to worm his way forward, close enough to grab Sherlock’s wrist, just to make sure, to be really, really sure, to know. There was nothing. No pulse, Sherlock wasn’t tensing as he always did when someone touched him. Nothing left. Faceless women and men were dragging him away again, away from the blood and the cadaver. He was pleading certainly, but it didn’t change anything. His throat hurt and his eyes burned and Sherlock was still dead, still bleeding sluggishly on the pavement, right in front of him.  
  
A gurney was wheeled forward by nurses coming from Bart’s and John’s knees gave out. Someone kept him from falling flat on his face, but he didn’t pay them any attention. The nurses turned Sherlock over and all John could see were those beautiful, cold blue eyes staring straight at the sky, unseeing. Sherlock was dead and all he could do was moan and cry out, repetitions of ‘Jesus’ and ‘Oh God’ and ‘No, please, no’ spilling from his lips, as tears flowed down his cheeks.  
  
A few minutes later, Sherlock rested on the stretcher. The nurses were about to wheel him into the building — into the morgue, they were taking him in the morgue, with the other dead bodies, with the dead dead dead dead…  
  
John jerked backward, maybe crying out, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was that Sherlock was dead and they would open him up and sew him back together and put him in the earth and he would be forever alone now, no more SherlockandJohn, no more dashing out on the trail of whichever criminal they were tracking this day. No more squabbling in the kitchen at 221B over who would do the dishes and why there wasn’t any milk left. No more dodging half finished experiments and opening the fridge slowly, in fear of what would be stocked in there this time.  
  
One moment, John was staring blankly at St Bart’s building, the next he was trudging slowly up the stair at 221B. The house was empty and silent. John didn’t pay attention to any of it. All he could do was stare, stare at their living room, stare at the beakers and petri dishes on the kitchen table, stare at the skulls and mountains of paper spread all over the place.  
  
The place felt lonely already and that was all he could look forward, now. An empty, bleak life, devoid of his friend, with nobody left to push him over his limit, to force him to live, to help him up and forward.  
  
John let out a desperate sob, as he remembered his life before Sherlock. Endless days spent sitting on his bed, staring at the wall, so that he wouldn’t stare at his gun.  
  
No, he wouldn’t! He wouldn’t spend his days trying and failing again. He didn’t want to have to push himself every minute of the day, to spend one more hour, one more day living. He’d had enough of that. He’d had a reprieve thanks to Sherlock, but that was it. He had reached the end of his rope, no more fighting, no more loneliness, no more pain.  
  
The few stairs up to his bedroom were especially hard to navigate today, with his limp back to full force. But John didn’t care, he had made his decision. If he was honest, he was almost happy with it.  
  
His gun was still in his bedside table drawer, the bullets neatly lined up in a box. John sighed in relief and grabbed the gun and one bullet. He looked quickly around himself, but he didn’t have time to play with a suicide note or anything. People wouldn’t be wondering why he killed himself, anyway. Not after what happened earlier. He was just going to join Sherlock, as he had always done. But he couldn’t afford to dither, because Mycroft certainly had him under surveillance and the team was probably on its way to stop him, already.  
  
As if to confirm his thoughts, the front door crashed open and John smiled gently. He loaded his gun with a few quick movements and turned the gun toward himself as booted footsteps hurried up the stairs. They were already at his bedroom door when he pulled the trigger. John had a passing thought that this wouldn’t be a nice sight for whichever agent that Mycroft had sent after him, then he knew no more.  
  
END

**Author's Note:**

> There are so many fics in which John tries to suicide but is stopped in extremis, I wanted to write one in which, well, there's no last minute save.  
> The 'worst' about all this, is that I don't even read death fic, but I just wrote one xD
> 
> Also, this almost needs a companion fic in which Sherlock realises exactly what he has done. But I don't think I could stomach that much angst ^^;;;
> 
> Also, thanks to Lucime for beta-reading this!


End file.
